I have more questions than answers. But I believe in something much bigger and try to share the little glimpses I see. Please share yours. Together we can create more - I believe.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

The "solution in search of a problem"

"A solution in search of a problem" is likely not a new line but caught my attention when it was delivered recently by Fox New's Chris Wallace.
When actions are taken to fight against a problem that doesn't exist, we have "a solution in search of a problem". ID laws are a very good example. These laws were proposed to prevent voter fraud, however, voter fraud is practically non-existent in the United States. When we follow what these laws actually did, we get to the real reason for their existence. It made voting more difficult and costly for anyone who does not have a driver's license. Poor, urban dwellers, minorities, and elderly women were the most affected. My own step-mother had to pay over $80 to obtain a series of documents to get her driver's license renewed in Florida due to these ID laws. Even though she already had a Florida driver's license, she had to obtain a copy of birth certificate. But she had been married twice. So, she needed her first marriage license to verify that name change. Then she needed her divorce documents to verify that change and then she needed the marriage license to show her last name change. In this case, the fraud is not at the feet of voter's, it's legislators creating a problem for a select group of people. Their goal was not elimination of non-existent voter fraud.
De-funding Planned Parenthood to stop abortions is another "solution in search of a problem". No government funding pays for abortions and hasn't in decades. The actual result of this is to decrease programs that help prevent un-wanted pregnancies and provide other health care for those in need. The actual intent of attacks against Planned Parenthood is to send women back to a time when they had no control over what happened to their own bodies. The laws passed to thwart the work of Planned Parenthood are another example of legislative fraud.
The most recent "solution in search of a problem" that Chris Wallace was referencing is the transgender bathroom laws. There have been no reported instances of a transgender person sexually assaulting anyone in a bathroom (or anywhere else that I've read about.) NONE. Recently a story floated around about a a guy who wore a dress so he could put cameras in a women's restroom in 2013. He wasn't transgender and likely these laws would not have helped prevent this. If you want to pick a population with a very high incidence of sexual deviance, you'd be better picking Catholic Priests than picking transgender people. The fact is, white males who identify as straight or celibate are the ones committing most sex crimes, not transgender people. The actual result of these laws is not about SOLVING a real problem, it's meant to create a problem and it's a backlash against LGBT people in general. For transgender people, the issue is life threatening for them, NOT us.
Most transgender women look and act like any other woman. Most transgender men look like most other men (but some behave much better than most men). It's actually a very ridiculous notion that someone is going to be enforcing these laws somehow. The purpose certainly isn't about a real problem, it can only be about creating one.